Possible Goth helmet on Ebay

[aligern]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ancient-Artifact-Iron-Spangenhelm-Helmet-Gothic-Migration-Period-RT-251-/330884376029?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d0a3ee5dd

This is described as. Goth helmet . The area of find is given as a ravine to the NE of Italy.
It is very like two helmets in the Kunstshistorisches Museum Vienna. I believe that these came from a similar N Balkan context. Frankly they could be any time from 400 to 1100 AD and do look rather like the helmets worn by soldiers in a ninth/tenth century Bible illustration.
Nothing about the context of the find gives it a date, it is a rather crude piece as are the Vienna helmets and there is no decoration to give a contextual date.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

Compare:
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/illustration/jockey-cap-helmets-from-sveti-vid-dalmatia-hun-stock-graphic/142456282 (the Sveti Vid helmets in Vienna)
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/1299339
http://royalathena.com/PAGES/MigrationMedievalCatalog/HMS25.html

There may be more of these around than I had realised.

[aligern]

Knew it would get a Duncan reply:-)).

How near is Sveti Vid to a ravine near NE Italy I wonder.
These do have a sort of munition look to them don't they, simple cheap construction using the wide central band to to distribute any blow rather than the more vulnerable join of say an intercisa helmet.

They do look as though they could also be related to the rounded classicised helmets on the chair of Bishop Maximian, but on the whole I suspect we would both go for a later date.

Roy

[Duncan Head]

How near is Sveti Vid to a ravine near NE Italy I wonder.

"Sveti Vid is a small village in hills northeast of Begunje in the Municipality of Cerknica in the Inner Carniola region of Slovenia" - so, not very far at all.

[aligern]

And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.
The helmets in Vienna seem to have been used to set the dates for the others. However, I recall that they were found in the Late 19th or early 20th century and don't seem to be associated with any firm dating.
If they are 4th century just how do they fit with anything else (not that they absolutely have to, but lots of finds do fit in a stylistic line with other helmets.
The contra to that would be those wired helmets from the Netherlands that are covered in spikes and look like something from a Conan story.
Roy

[Duncan Head]

And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.

Something to do with the apparently two-piece Carolingian  manuscript helmets, are you thinking?

The helmets in Vienna seem to have been used to set the dates for the others. However, I recall that they were found in the Late 19th or early 20th century and don't seem to be associated with any firm dating.

I think I have seen the Vienna ones with a range of suggested dates;  I agree that I don't think they can be dated very reliably. But I do share your earlier suspicion that they resemble helmets on Byzantine maybe-6th-century ivory - not (IIRC) the throne of Maximian (does that have helmets?) but that ivory with a couple of armoured infantry and an armoured horse-archer, which I think is in a museum in Germany somewhere - was that the one you were thinking of?

[Erpingham]

And on the Carolingian and later Ottonian frontier. Which might be suggestive.

Something to do with the apparently two-piece Carolingian  manuscript helmets, are you thinking?

Reminiscent too of the Aachen situla, which is dated around 1000.  So, an apparently long lived style.  Incidentally, I found this site (in Czech?) which has a nice collection of Carolingian and other helmets to compare too

http://frankove.livinghistory.cz/vystroj.htm

In terms of an early date, is the absence of cheek pieces a problem?  It doesn't look like it had any attached.

[Erpingham]

Also, while checking Duncan links, I noticed this alleged Viking helmet

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/16017042_viking-iron-bremen-style-helmet

The description is of a spangenhelm, with cheek pieces, but again with the low domed profile typical of some Carolingian helmets.  Given th vague provenance, I would be wary of the Viking attribution (do so-called Viking helmets fetch more?) but interesting if the dating is right.

[Duncan Head]

The "Viking" helmet has its skull made up of four triangular plates like a spangenhelm, but with two bands crossing over each other rather than four or more spangen meeting at the apex, so it's not a spangenhelm by the strictest definition (http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/1/pdf/3257384.pdf.bannered.pdf).

** Sorry, that link should have been http://www.xlegio.ru/pdfs/sasanian_chieftains_helmet.pdf - that's the Grancsay article that discusses the difference in structure between spangenhelme and the crossing-band style. But the first article is valuable as well so I'll leave both links in! 

It does look similar in general outline to the St Vid type, though the resemblance would be less striking if one of the two had cheekpieces.

The "Bremen" helmet referred to is probably the one illustrated in https://sites.google.com/site/archoevidence/home/helmets, which is one of the spike-covered ones Roy mentions, and which looks from the photo as if it is a genuine spangenhelm.

[aligern]

I love that Czech article!
Must say that I increasingly disbelieve in the Carolingian helmet that is portrayed as a sort of morion.
I believe that the ones from Doura Europus probably show a Roman helmet with a pointed moveable peak. The parallel of the Carolingian versions with others that show a helmet with two half bowls, a fore and aft ridge and often a button at the front is just so strong. One can see that in some of the depictions of those helmets the classicising tendency is flaring out the brim and putting a Roman style, forward curving crest on the top.
There are helmets on the Maximian chair, they are, as you say Duncan similar in genre to the depiction of an aristocrat and his bukellarii that represents a classicised depiction of a rounded helmet with cheek pieces.

We have a surprising number of spangenhelmen and other Dark Age helmets  and I'd suggest that we have enough to say that something shown in art only and in art that does not look flatly realistic is dubious .
Roy

[Duncan Head]

There are helmets on the Maximian chair, they are, as you say Duncan similar in genre to the depiction of an aristocrat and his bukellarii that represents a classicised depiction of a rounded helmet with cheek pieces.

Ah, I see (and remember) now - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mararie/3324790061/

On the "bucellarii" ivory (which is at the Czech http://frankove.livinghistory.cz/vystroj.htm site about halfway down, if anyone doesn't know what we are talking about) what reminds me of the St Vid helmets is :

- The skull shape, bulbous and almost slightly flattened at the top,
- The fact that what looks at the front like a pseudo-Attic brow decoration actually continues all round the helmet as a broad rim, like the base-ring of the St Vid helmets.

Despite the cheekpieces, I can quite easily see these helmets as classicizations of the Sveti Vid type, so I would guess that a 6th century date for the latter may not be far off. The Maximian throne helmets don't look quite so SvetiVid-esque to me.

[aligern]

Interswtingly the two qualifiers that are given in terms of bulbosity and continuance of the brim fit the Maximian helmets just about as well!!  They are a little more classical, but then the ivory plaque has a plume on one doesn't it?
Roy

[Duncan Head]

Also, while checking Duncan links, I noticed this alleged Viking helmet
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/16017042_viking-iron-bremen-style-helmet

I've just noticed that this "Viking" helmet is constructed in the same way as the Anglo-Saxon Shorwell helmet (http://tinyurl.com/c3dp6vt) - browband, two crossover bands, four sub-triangular skull segments. The two look quite similar, in fact, though one difference is that the bands on the Shorwell helmet flare out at the base, like the spangen on the contemporary 6th-century Baldenheim spangenhelm group, whereas the "Viking" helmet's crossbands are straight, which would fit the suggested later date.

[valentinianvictor]

The helmet looks very similar to one that was recently discovered that may have been used as a funerary Urn, I cannot remember where I read or saw this though BBC? RAT?).

Two problems with this Helmet are, are the archeological organisations where it was found alerted to the find, and also, is it genuine or a fake as many such items on Ebay turn out to be fakes.

[aligern]

There are starting to be enough of these helmets for them to be a widespread type or at least sub type of spangenhelm. What is particularly good is that they are such un fussy construction as to be a valid mass produced munition helmet for ordinary chaps. Generally Baldenheim style helmets are very beautifully decorated which argues for  them being elite items whereas these do not look elite at all . Baldenheims would be difficult to mass produce  whereas the Ebay, kunstshistorisches  museum and Shorwell helmets all look very suitable for manufacture.

Roy